The mini-riots, union buffoonery, and run-away tactics in Wisconsin, Indiana, and now reportedly Ohio, in response to austerity budgets and restrictions on Union bargaining for things other than wages/benefits, obscures the reality. Diversity means States (and the Federal government) can afford only rock-bottom wages and benefits. Why? Because when you import a goodly portion of Mexico’s poor, you get the tax base and as a result the government of Mexico. A non-diverse, mostly White middle class population can afford to pay for an expansive government that does many things (the Puritan/Progressive model of government from New England, as described by David Hackett Fischer). One comprised mostly of poor Mexicans will get, inevitably, the government of Mexico. File this under obvious. But a reality that has been kicked down the can as far as it can go, under the Quaker/Friends “one world” post-Christian utopianism of all peoples being all the same, in every particular dimension.

Wisconsin is about $3.6 billion in deficit, over the next two year budget cycle. California is even worse, with about $26 billion in debt looming for the next budget cycle. This is due to the tremendous influx of very, very poor Mexicans. The Census Bureau reports in 2009 that the median household income for Whites was $54,461 (White, not Hispanic). For Hispanic (any race) it was $38,089. That is a difference of $16,372. Hispanics are a full 30% less wealthy than Whites, by Household measurement, in the Census Bureau estimates from 2009. When taking into account non-measured illegal aliens, by any means a large proportion of Hispanics, the numbers will be even worse.

Illegal aliens pay on average, about $1,000 to $5,000 per person, to smugglers (coyotes) to cross the border. The money is often borrowed, at usurious rates (sometimes 100% interest or more) and must be payed back on cost of reprisals (like cutting off of heads) of family members in Mexico. Then, there is the paltry amount of wages that illegal aliens earn. The LAT reports that many illegals are paid as little as $3.50 an hour, far below state minimum of $8 an hour. Finally, a full $30 billion or more is sent back to Mexico in the form of remittances (the largest amount of foreign earnings Mexico has, outstripping petroleum exports) from the US. This suggests strongly that illegal aliens have little money in the US, what little they have goes to coyotes and family members back home, with living conditions and (taxable spending) being very, very low.

You cannot build a first class government workforce on the backs of illegal aliens earning $3.50 an hour. You cannot do this even on their descendants, who remain mostly mired in poverty and earn at least 30% less than Whites based on household income (likely the figure would be worse with Cuban-descendants stripped out). America now has substantially a good deal of Mexico’s population. And with it, the ability to pay only for a slightly higher level of government than Mexico itself.

This sets up inevitably a spoils battle. As the scenes from Wisconsin show, most of the striking workers are White. Teachers remain mostly White in places like Wisconsin, but they are in direct conflict with an influx of poor illegal aliens (mostly from Mexico and Central America). Wisconsin can pay for the union members and wages and benefits it has, but only at the expense of deporting in some manner the tidal wave of very poor people who consume social spending like sponges and have little taxable activity to pay for it. Or Wisconsin can accept “diversity” and embrace what Washington Post writer Harold Myerson cited as the “end of Whiteness” (no state has been historically more White than Wisconsin) and have government including wages and benefits only marginally better than Mexico.

It cannot have both high wages, benefits, and government services, and diversity. There just is not enough money to pay for diversity.

Diversity COSTS MONEY. It costs reduced services, reduced government wages, reduced benefits, and thus guarantees only the most corrupt and venal government employees (good government requires expensive wage/benefit packages and constant monitoring — cheap government defaults to the corrupt model seen in Mexico).

White union workers thus have a stark choice. They can either join in some coalition to deport illegal aliens (and their dependents) and thus reduce government outlays to afford their current level of wages and benefits, or accept mass layoffs AND wages and benefits far, far below current rates as the price for diversity. Having lots of poor people is never “free” and the White union workers are bearing that cost right now, in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Wisconsin, and states like it (California under Pat Brown, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota) were able to afford a large, effective, and professional government. One that built massive highway/freeway systems, state of the art higher education institutions, and efficient fire and police systems. Call this the middle class utopia. All that depended on a large pool of Middle Class taxpayers. Diversity means replacing that Middle Class (which has always been, and always will be, overwhelmingly White) which was willing to tax itself to pay for things it directly consumed, with very poor illegal aliens and their descendants.

Will a very small pool of Middle Class White voters tax itself into oblivion to serve “first in line” (i.e. Whites “get to the back of the Bus” per President Obama) non-Whites, mostly illegal aliens and their descendants? So far, the answer has been no. That likelihood is even less in rapidly rising prices and stagnant wages, with price shocks of oil and other disasters already occurring. This is particularly true for a White Middle Class that has already priced in the probability of ever getting any social security ten or twenty years down the road. White middle class voters don’t have much confidence on either the ability or will of non-Whites to pay for older Whites retirement and health care. Even less in a legal system of caste-level group rights, with enshrined discrimination against Whites in employment, government contracting, education, and other areas of life.

White identity-spoils politics, has already begun. Amy Chua’s World On Fire (yes, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” Amy Chua) model of “market dominant minorities” who despise and remove themselves from their majority competitors (think Diaspora Chinese in Southeast Asia) accurately describes SWPL. Who for all their rhetoric do the utmost to stay away from non-Whites, and exhibit separatist behaviors (Apple Computer, Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Jazz and Classical Music, PBS, etc, all things no Black or Hispanic person would be caught dead engaging in, shopping at, or listening to) radically different from that of non-Whites.

But for those not of the highly skilled, upper cognitive levels, who are not Harvard or Yale professors (like Chua and her husband), the alternative is “borderer” identity politics. Along the lines of the Scots-English border country, where fighting, feuding, clan-identity politics have been a way of life for almost 4,000 years. White union workers who are descended from this culture or shaped by it, are unlikely to be shopping at Trader Joes and figuring out ways to cheat or manipulate the new non-White majority. But they are likely based on their history in this country and Britain, to engage in a long running series of feuds in politics and by other means. A culture based on continual fighting with the Picts, Romans, Irish, Scots, Danes, Normans, English, and Scots again, is unlikely to choose either peace or surrender.

That same desire for pugilism, for in-your-face action, for “get bloody” rhetoric and goon-ishness, can be put against non-Whites in a spoils battle. History and culture suggests that it will, given that there just is not enough money to go around. Today the conflict is against Gov. Walker. Tomorrow, it could be La Raza.

Yes, the objections are that history goes only one direction. That the arrow of progress cannot be reversed. As Mark Steyn has pointed out, the pictures of Egyptian women graduating from the University of Cairo in 1959 and 1979-onwards bely this. The entire Middle East has rejected modernism and all its contents, in favor of various forms of Islamism. The fall of Mubarak, of likely Khadaffi, of perhaps even the Saudis, will only ensure more Islamism and less of even the minor trappings of modernity.

I find it extremely unlikely that White union members will simply decide to “give up their jobs so other people can have them” as Obama’s Diversity Czar suggested. Their culture, background, and very sudden desperation makes a series of conflicts guaranteed. With naturally, the spoils battles tending towards taking money from non-White interest groups, given the constraints on raising taxes that exist. The public employee union groups are likely to be joined by the far greater non-government White workers, who lack the skills and connections to form a “market dominant minority” and don’t like being made suddenly poor. Machiavelli advised it would be better to kill a man’s parents than make him suddenly poor, as he would forgive the former before he would the latter. That should a man be made poor, he should be just as well killed, to secure the rule of the Prince.

13 Responses to Wisconsin and the Wages of Diversity

You may be overstating the impact of minorities on the crisis, Whiskey.I was actually under the impression that Wisconsin was a "Whitopia". One of the few remaining states without large concentrations of minorities, and the associated minority-produced pathologies. Currently, Wisconsin is 89% White, and only about 5% Latino. Even taking into account factors like illegal immigrants and Latinos' tendency to describe themselves as White, probably fewer than 1 in 10 citizens is Latino.The real conflict in WI is probably between overpaid, predominantly white public sector employees and the shrinking public sector. Not unlike the situation in predominantly white countries such as France and Italy, where job-holding public sector fiftysomethings find themselves in conflict with the younger generation, which is largely unemployed or leeched to pay for Gov't salaries.Consequently, the WI situation seems to be a unique case where the White Left is largely responsible for the crisis at hand. In coastal urban areas, on the other hand, you do in fact tend to see budget problems more in line with the California experience – regional collapse due to black & hispanic low per capita wealth and disproportionate consumption of public funds (public assistance, law enforcement associated costs, and Affirmative Action).

France of course is heavily Muslim. Easily over 20%, the real rate anyway. The same is true to a lesser extent in Italy, where there is a large Albanian population. Also of course Gypsies.I was under the impression that Wisconsin had very significant numbers of illegal aliens added in the last ten years. The Census say 5.3% Hispanic for Wisconsin, but California it is 37%. White not Hispanic for Wisconsin is 84.6%. Meaning 15.4% is non-White.Is 15.4% in a small, relatively modest state enough to kill prosperity? I don't know. But I think it might, particularly given Wisconsin's slow growth (private, non-farm employment change 2000-8 is only 3.4%) and somewhat limited economic base (farming, some manufacturing, some timber/mining). There is only 5.6 million people in Wisconsin. That's not a lot of people. California was IMHO able to cruise beyond its ability due to its size for decades.

A better question is to ask if there has been any growth in the size of the public sector union in the last 10 years. Have they been adding more members?This could provide a proxy for the growth of the non-white and illegal population that most government programs are designed to serve. For example, is the student population in wisconsin growing, causing an increase in the number of teachers? If so, what accounts for that growth?

You leave out the more likely scenario — minorities will increase in numbers until they have control of the government. Then, they'll raise taxes on whites (who constitute the upper half of wealth holders and income earners), and impoverish them.

Our at some point people will shed this neo-calvinist bullshit and stop blaming poor Mexicans for their problems. If the poor Mexicans staid in Mexico, you'd just end up with all the jobs in Mexico, China, India etc where ever work can be done the cheapest. Why? It's all in order to maximize the bonuses of ultra-rich white people. Then they blame blue collar unemployment on Mexicans in the US after shipping all your jobs to Mexico, China, and India. If you're not rich and you believe in American conservatism and laissez faire capitalism, you're in for a rude awakening as globalization brings your quality of life in line with those of other blue collar workers around the globe. I can't wait until the Cuyahoga river catches on fire again as we deregulate everything to bring back white people jobs. Oh wait, Centralia is still burning underground as it has been for the last 30 years /endrant

Nullpointer — there is no particular reason why jobs have to be exported to the lowest labor cost. Germany and Japan have both faced erosion in their industrial base to China, but have managed to retain a good deal of their manufacturing capability. While reducing their pollution to more acceptable levels. Industrial towns in Germany and Japan are no longer hell-holes, wealth allows things like cleaner factories. It was after all Hungary not Germany that spilled that toxic sludge into the Danube.

Race doesn't really play a role here, but it will if events continue on their current path. Now, it's a question of the sustainablility of the 1950s labor environment in the Midwest, where you have closed shops. Note that Indiana is one step down the road in this fight. Their fleebaggers are afraid of the private sector being opened up. Ohio is heading down this path as well.Open shops will mean that manufacturers like BMW, Volkswagen, Kia will consider their states along with the southern open shop states.

Pretty fascinating how anti-capitalists rarely grasp the connection between anti-capitalism and disregard for the environment. Back in the early 90's National Geographic ran an excellent story on the industrial squalor pervading Warsaw Pact countries. Around the same time, 60 Minutes ran a story on Soviets' use of nuclear weapons in civil engineering projects, and the resulting birth defects. Thousands within the "proletariat" were killed outright or condemned to shortened life expectancies, but apparently that's OK. Leftists have no problem whatsoever with their favorite regimes' environmental catastrophes. Or with outsourcing pollution to poorer countries. Just something to keep in mind the next time you hear a lecture on minor-league catastrophes like Centralia.Anti-capitalists are also likely to excuse the destructive population replacement strategies Leftist elites champion – after all, who can say no to those "Poor Mexicans?" (TM).People with open minds want to read Victor Davis Hanson's comments on his state's Mexicanization. Many of his stories mention how filthy the California countryside is now that illegals are establishing rural squatters' camps. National parks are littered with garbage, human waste, "rape trees" (google if you have a strong stomach), and the odd marijuana plot. Not to mention unregulated Mexican businesses, which can be counted on not to dispose of their wastes properly. The fruits and nuts in the CA state government rarely go after these Hispanic polluters, even though they are happy to drown legitimate [white] businesses owners in red tape. One wonders how long progressive doublethink, which excuses non-white environmental destruction while penalizing law abiding whites, will be allowed to go on.

The Census Bureau reports in 2009 that the median household income for Whites was $54,461 (White, not Hispanic). For Hispanic (any race) it was $38,089. That is a difference of $16,372. Hispanics are a full 30% less wealthy than Whites, by Household measurement, in the Census Bureau estimates from 2009.I think you've gravely underestimated the problem by confusing income with wealth, Whiskey. I'd venture to say that white WEALTH (net assets owned) is even higher, by an amount that exceeds two or three times Hispanic wealth. Making the persistence of poverty that much more likely.